


In the Tent

by Pokypup49



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Broken, Crying, Dark, Depression, F/M, Fluff, He can't lie, Lost Hope, Quite Dark, Resentment, Royai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokypup49/pseuds/Pokypup49
Summary: Roy is looking for a place to sand in the Ishval war. He walks into a tented area and hears some crying. What he finds is more than he'd like to see.**The sobs grew quiet, but his guilt did not. He hoped, deeply hoped, that she had fallen asleep. He kept his own tears in. Every damn minute in the desert. It was the heat, the killing, the burning of bodies and hearing the screams.**





	In the Tent

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of the characters.

              He trudged through the camp, smelling the smoke from the fires and feeling the chill from the clear night in his exposed face. It was almost over. Almost. And he was exhausted. His tent was occupied by his loud snoring bunkmate and he debated finding a spot away from the glowing embers other circled about. It was quiet, not because they had to be, but because they too were holding their eyes open for one more bite. He wandered, hearing the crackle of the dry wood fade into the dark space. Anywhere would be fine. He just needed his own space. He wasn't even looking as his legs carried him, step by step, into the darkness that seemed to call to his broken heart. There always that option. He could just walk away. However, as a recognized State Alchemist, they'd look for him. And he had plans. He was devising elaborate plans on his downtime to rectify the government and cleanse the army of its corruption. Even if he had to do it by himself, he was going to climb the ladder and strike when no one was looking.

              As he noticed he had circled about, now entering the women's camp, he stopped. There weren't too many. They had separated themselves from the main camp months ago. He didn't blame them. He thought about moving his tent just a bit farther out, but that was so others couldn't hear him cry. He kicked the sand as he stood there, watching a woman with darker hair, curly and long, exit a tent and look over at him. They both nod and she walks up to him.

              “What are you doing,” she asks bluntly.

              “I don't know,” he chuckled nervously in return. “Just wandering I suppose.”

              She looked around, seeing I'd he was alone he guessed. “You look tired,” she frowned. “Stop walking, start sleeping.”

              He had heard Hughes tell him that too. It was so easy for them. That was okay, he supposed. They were all fighting their own demons. Some people just didn't fight as hard or accepted them in full. He could guess that others became demons. But Roy? He could hide, couldn't and wouldn't accept them. He turned to walk around camp. If he went this way, he'd surely find a cot or a hole he could roll into by the medical area. It wasn't always quiet, but they always had warm food and hot drinks. It'd be something nice to wake up to.

              He pasted one tent and heard something that made him stop. It was this pathetic sniveling that he would assume the men around his tent heard of him. It was quite sad and lonely. He could hear the tired breaths, the heavy sobs that kept her awake when she should be asleep herself. It wasn't his business to intervene. Most soldiers, male or female, hated being exposed to their own mental falts, and he decided to move along. He didn't have all day to find a resting point. His time was limited and the longer he searched, the less time he had to succumb to his wretched nightmares. Like her, his darkness was not just this cold night, but his soul that was once young and bright, now tarnished and burnt with the orders of war and death.

              “Damn him,” he heard as he took another step. “Why did I ever… why?” There was another heavy sob, then a soft cough.

              He would have normally just passed it off, kept walking. There were many relationship issues in and out of the military. The war brought on hard times and many sought comfort in the opposite … or same sex. Parted couples fought over letters, depressing words that were scribbled hastily onto paper. It was none of his business. He didn’t need it to be. Roy was already being forced to listen to his friend babble on about his _successful_ relationship, he didn’t need someone to puppy-dog him around about their broken one. But this mournful sob and heartbreaking words were from a voice familiar.

             Roy stood at the back of the tent, looking at his feet as he listened. He wondered if it was better that he never ran into her. Or maybe she did go looking for him. But his teacher’s last words were to take care of her, and he had done none of that. She was now in the worst time of his life, sharing the same hell. It was nothing that he ever wanted for _her_. She was the one that he wrote letters to, but never sent them. She was the one that he ever had any feelings for but never told her. Their childhood was intertwined, and it roped into their adult lives. And it wasn’t like Roy ever truly loved her. He was too young to know love as a teen. And he wasn’t sure he could ever love as an adult, let alone be loved. But she was a friend. She was someone he trusted since the time of their meeting on the sunny day he knocked on his teacher’s door.

             The sobs grew quiet, but his guilt did not. He hoped, deeply hoped, that she had fallen asleep. He kept his own tears in. Every damn minute in the desert. It was the heat, the killing, the burning of bodies and hearing the screams. It was the smells, the greasy feeling on his skin that made him feel like the last remnants of his victims were sticking to him as their last efforts to damn him. It worked. It was watching other soldiers fall, lifeless, and knowing that their deaths were just as meaningless as the ones he took with his own hand. Then… it was her. It was knowing that his pain and torment was not secluded to just him. That his soul was not the only one being ripped apart inch by inch. But it tore at his heart knowing that he had some part in her misery.

             He turned to walk to the front of the tent and stopped again after just two steps. It was important to wonder if she was alone. Normally everyone had a tent mate. Though soldiers were dying, so were supplies. A male soldier, let alone an officer, just walking into a woman’s tent would not end well for the man. It didn’t matter his intentions. True to the women’s camp’s reputation, it was quiet. There wasn’t anyone around. Roy wondered if they were all in their tents, bearing their own tears, or if they were out on duty. It didn’t matter. He heard another whimper and he tenderly slipped to the front of the tent.

             Roy lifted the flap and peeked in. She wasn’t even on her cot. She was on the wooden floor, with her head on her knees, pulled up to her chest. She wasn’t in uniform, just some pants for sleeping and a black shirt. She didn’t even look up if she did know that he was there. He watched as her shoulders and back shuddered with each wrack of tears. Her short blonde hair was dirty, filled with sand, and her arms were the same. He couldn’t have stood there very long, but it felt as if time had stopped, that he had become nonexistent and was just a spectator to her sorrow. He watched as she cried over his actions. Because as if killing thousands with the literal snap of his hand wasn’t enough, he had to be reminded that he was forced to break a promise to her.    

             “Hawkeye?” His voice crackled as he broke the tension in the air.

             Her head shot up as she looked at him with red and swollen eyes.

             “Are you okay?” What else was he supposed to say? He wasn’t even supposed to be there! He shouldn’t have seen her like this. He shouldn’t have heard her cry.

             “What,” she wiped her face as she quickly tried to compose herself. “What are you doing here.”

             He stepped in, noticing she was alone, letting the flap fall behind him. “I was looking for a place to sleep,” he replied honestly. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t meaning to eavesdrop.” He let his shoulders drop as he looked back at his shoes.

             She put her chin on her knees and looked away. They didn’t say anything else for the time period. They couldn’t even look at each other. He felt that he needed to be there, that he was going to comfort her, maybe apologize to her, lie to her again and tell her it was going to be alright. All the while she probably didn’t want him there at all. But she didn’t tell him to leave.

             Roy took a step forward. “I know you’re angry at me,” he whispered.

            “That’s an understatement,” she muttered to the wall.

             He sighed softly as he took another step. “I don’t like it here either. I don’t like what I’m doing.”

             She turned as looked up at him. Surprisingly, there wasn’t anger. There wasn’t resentment as he had prepared. “I was thinking of what Kimblee said.”

             Roy chuckled, though it was humorlessly. “He’s an asshole,” he whispered as he sat next to her. He looked at her, watching her still frozen on her place, still not looking at him. “I know you're angry with me," he repeated.

             “You're an asshole…” her whisper drifted into the silent tent. He could tell that she didn’t want to say it to him, but it needed to be said. She couldn’t even look at him. She wouldn’t even acknowledge that it was him that she was saying it to. But he knew it was meant for him. They sat, just inches apart, in the still air, waiting for the other. Not even the wind blew. The air was stagnant, still enough to believe the only current was from their breath.

             And all he could do is nod. There wasn't an argument that could be made. He was an asshole. He was a murdering asshole. He let her down, there was no argument to it. There was nothing he could say that could make it better, nothing he could do to make it up to her.

             “I believed you,” she whispered again, holding back more tears.

             “I know,” he whispered back. Their words were quiet as if not to unsettle the heavy weights that grew in their chests. “I believed me too.”

             She sniffed loudly before putting her forehead on her knees again, hiding her face. He watched her shoulders trembled as she forfeited the fight against her tears. He wanted to touch her, just to put his hand on her back. His hand hovered over her shoulder for a second before he put it back on his own knees, pulling them up to his chest. There they sat, two scarred and damaged souls. Their insecurity was blatant, even to him, as they curled into themselves. The only security they had was within themselves, and even then it was himself that was harmful. He was harmful to everything around him. It all burned. Roy wanted to get up, go find that quiet hole and bury himself in it. It’d start over tomorrow as the order came in and he’d lead his men into the field.       

            “Is it everything you ever dreamed,” she asked, lifting her head and looking at him for the first time.

             He looked back at her. Her eyes were sunken. The brown, happy and warm eyes that glowed at him in the grass as he studied, were gone. She was gone. Roy had to wonder if that’s what he looked like? Gone. “No,” he shook his head, frowning at her, holding back his own tears. His chest hurt as the pressure built up, holding his emotions in. “It isn’t anything that I’ve dreamed.” It was hard to admit his failure, but somehow relieving. He was able to admit it, not hide it anymore. Maybe the military wasn’t the way to go. Maybe it was a naive and childish ambition that he had concocted to excuse his actions. But he had already made plans for retribution. He had to pay for his sins somehow. And if overthrowing the military and bringing all the bastards that were war hungry and bloodthirsty to justice was the only way, then he’d walk into it with his head held high.

             Riza wiped her nose on her wrist as she sat back. “What do we do now?” She sniffed and looked to the dark roof of her tent. “Do we just go on believing this never happened?”

            Roy shook his head picking at some balled up lint on his pants. “No,” he said firmly. “We can’t forget. We can never forget.” He felt her eyes turned to him. “I’m going to go after every single one of them,” he whispered firmly. “I’m going to overthrow each one of them, starting at the bottom, and bring each one to justice for these war crimes.”     

            Riza looked back wide-eyed. “Roy,” she whispered, clearly shocked by her tone. “That’s treason. You can’t say that.”       

            He nodded putting his chin on his folded arms on his knees. “At least these consequences are the ones I know I’m getting myself into.”

             She didn’t respond as she wiped her eyes and seemed to sober up a bit. Quiet came back as the only sounds in the hollow canvas was their steady breaths. He couldn’t sleep. The trouble of being in there alone was not worth the trouble, but it called to him. It was going to be cold wherever he fell, there was no use fighting it. His eyes fluttered shut and he’d pop them back open.

            “Are you going to use my father’s research for that?”         

            His eyes shut again, his breathing became deep as he exhaled. He couldn’t respond right away. Would she accept that? Or would she accuse him of continued misuse for it? “Alchemy is for the people,” he breathed, saying what sounded like a memorized verse. “It’s for the people that I will win. I have to win. I have to…” 

            He was crashing hard. His eyes couldn’t stay open anymore, the world was being tuned out, and his body was relaxing. All while, alarms argued his rest. He needed to stay awake. He needed to rise up and go somewhere else, even if it was 100 meters away from the tent. He needed to find somewhere else to sleep. However, by the time he vaguely felt her head fall onto his shoulder, the fight was lost. He’d wake in a few hours anyway. He never got much sleep, even if wanted to. He’d escape then.

              “I’m not sure why I should ever believe you again,” she whispered as she pulled a blanket from the cot and threw it over the two of them. “I shouldn’t. But I do,” she admitted. “I hope that you do.”

              When Roy did wake, she was still leaned against his shoulder. Her tears were dried up and she was breathing so much softer, rhythmic, and so different from just hours ago. He listened for movement outside, hearing a few women whispering as they moved around. It was still dark, still cold. The only luminary in the tent was the dying lantern which was literally on its last leg. It wouldn’t receive oil for a few more days at least. He ran his hand through his greasy and dirty hair and looked back down at the blonde head next to him. He noticed the standard issued blanket, smiling at her gesture. Apparently, she still loved this asshole. He couldn’t let that go. His body ached horribly and he imagined that hers did as well, but he’d have to wake her. Whatever sleep she had left before duty, she’d sleep better in her cot.

             He felt a shiver run down his spine as he pulled the blanket off him. Not that it ever provided any barrier from the intense chill. Everything about the land was intense; the heat, the cold, the rain, the people, the religion, the war….  Roy balled up his fists. Intense longing for home, intense loss of life, Intense hatred; there was no median.

 He took a deep breath, waking up and sliding from Riza. She woke almost instantly, her head shooting up and putting up a guard. Roy raised his hands, showing no ill-will, and hushed. Her. “It’s just me,” he whispered. “Just me…”        

            She relaxed as she looked around.

            “Do you always jump up like that when you get woken up? What happens when your officer comes in?”

            Riza yawned and rubbed her face. “I punch her,” she joked.         

            He snickered and looked around, clearly awkward now. “You… you feel better?” He leaned over to stand up, but her hand reached out and grabbed his elbow.

            “No,” she admitted quietly. “But what am I supposed to do?” He turned to see her eyes advert from him again.

             He had nothing to offer. He didn’t have answers, prayers, reasons, or wants. He had nothing for her. He did have one thing. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. He saw her face turn pink before he turned and stood up. “You better get into the cot and get some rest,” he nodded. He reached over to the dying lamp. “And save your oil.” Roy watched her in the darkness as she climbed onto the cot but did not lay down. He stood there and looked at her hunched over form. He finally was able to notice how thin she was. The wool blue uniforms sometimes hid that. He wasn’t sure why he was still there, he had no more business to attend to. He wasn’t sure if he had any, to begin with. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave yet. And she didn’t lay down to rest. She just sat there, looking at the ground.          

            “Is it going to be okay,” she asked slowly.

            Another question he couldn’t answer. It’d be easy to lie to her. He could tell her yes. He could tell her that she’d feel better once she got home, once she was back at East City, and once she was out of combat. It’d be better when she’d never have to look back. He could tell her that after a nice rest in the barracks, in a softer bed, with a warmer blanket, and the soft hum of the heater, she’d feel like new. The idea of smelling fresh flowers, eating a decent meal, and drinking real fresh milk was real and it was so close. Maybe even one day she’d find the right guy that was everything but him; someone who’d never lie to her, who would never take advantage of her, and never send her to war. Roy wanted to put his hand on her shoulder, squeeze it gently, letting her know he was there for her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hug her. But maybe it was all for his own comfort. And then he’d be lying to himself. “No,” he answered in a breath. “No.” Roy turned and opened the flap, leaving her.

            He didn’t hear any more crying or sobbing as he pushed through the sand as he rounded the tent. Above him, the stars were clouded by the smoke, but he wished to just see one. If there was hope of happiness, then why were even the stars masked by the products of war, of himself? No moon, no stars, just darkness which consumed him as he made his way to the hospital. Once there, he wasn’t as tired as he was before, and there was no hole to sleep in. Not even a hole for the dead. He looked at the little light from the field hospital, listening to the moans from within. As long as her cries were from her own tent, he concluded, there was hope.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm going through another dark stage. Not sure why. The summer sun is on it's way out. Maybe I just like writing dark work. I don't know.  
> Fun fact! When the soldiers came back from WW2 and Korea, all they wanted was a cup of milk. They hadn't had real milk in so long, they'd forgotten it. 
> 
> Thank you for being a reader. I hope that you have enjoyed it. Let me know, I'd love to know what you thought of it.


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